Creation: Abiogenesis Part IV
A Sunday guest post by my brilliant husband, Gregg.
Every Sunday, my clever husband offers me a “day of rest” by writing posts on the subject of his primary ministry. This is a topic that is gaining more and more attention in our modern culture. The topic, Creationism vs. Darwinism, is a subject that has broad reaching scientific, social, and metaphysical implications. He chooses to conclude each post with a message intended to hearten and bolster believers. However, for believers and non-believers alike, the primary purpose is to present scientific, historical, logical, and/or sociological data in an empirical fashion, as much as possible written in layman’s terms, and in a format suitable for supplementing any homeschool curriculum whether you choose to believe the Biblical account — or secular guesses — about the origins of human life on earth.
A Darwinian Primer
The 6 types of evolution taught in the average public school, the first 5 being types of Darwinian evolution, and the last being simple modifications or changes within kind and not even really “evolution” are:
- Cosmic evolution
- Stellar evolution
- Chemical evolution
- Abiogenesis—Life from non-life
- Macro-evolution
- Micro-evolution (Changes within kind – not evolution)
Battle of beliefs, War of Worldviews, and “gods” of Gaps
A “god” of the gap fallacy is a special kind of argument from ignorance that takes place when one has absolutely no explanation for — or is utterly ignorant of — how something might come to be the way it is and so fills in the “gap” in his knowledge with whatever “god” he thinks magically made things the way they are. Darwinists fervently and often accuse believers in the scientifically supported Biblical account of creation of being guilty of committing a “god of the gaps” fallacy when we point to evidence of design in, well, every very obviously designed living thing.
I fear this kind of religious infighting can only lead to further conflict between those who espouse the Darwinist dogma and those who understand Biblically revealed knowledge and truth. The fact is that Darwinists are far more guilty of this fallacy than those who are open minded enough to ponder the supernatural in addition to the natural world.
Speaking specifically of the abiogenesis debate, Darwinists face thousands of problems concerning how that first magical spontaneous generation of life from non-life might have taken place. In order for the ridiculous Darwinian myths to hold water, a fully formed and fully functional living organism — our alleged original ancestor and the original seed from which then sprouted the entire (big, booming announcer voice, please!) “TREE OF LIFE” — would have had to have sprung into existence from non-living things like rocks and dirt and seawater, much like the mythical Athena sprung full grown and fully formed from a clam.
Except in the Darwinist myth, there was no clam, because there were no other living things on earth except great grandpa Rocks-n-dirt himself. In the mythical, magical primordial environment, there was only rock, dirt, sunshine, and sea water which naturally decided it would create life. Great grandpa Rocks-n-dirt allegedly thrived in this environment and gave birth to every living thing in the known universe from bacteria to birds, from plants to symbiotic life forms, from cougars to cattle.
Lately, the logical and scientific problems Darwinists face with this contention are so severe and so damning that Darwinists have resorted to the Alien Fallacy, which is their very own special “god” of the gap fallacy and an enormous argument from ignorance. That is to say, they have developed something they grandly label a “theory” which they authoritatively call (big, booming announcer voice, again!) panspermia, the scientific sounding word that basically means “Aliens from outer space did it!”
I have trouble agreeing that this fallacy merits being titled something so grand as a “theory” so let’s look at it based on merit. First of all, it instantly begs the question, of course, and the regress of causality logically leads skeptics such as myself to ask, “Well, then, how did the aliens who seeded life on earth come to be on their own planet?” for which there is also no answer. Unless, maybe, some other alien beings panspermia-ed them, too, and so on ad infinitum. Only there is no infinitum in the equation since the universe is finite. Eventually, you are just plain out of time for aliens to have infinitely created other aliens. Also, logically, since an infinite regress of causality is impossible, we must at some point encounter what Aristotle and Socrates called the uncaused cause or the prime mover which leads full circle back to the present debate right here on planet earth. What — or more accurately “WHO” — is the first cause.
As an answer to the creation question, panspermia ranks right up there with any other pagan religious creation myth. Why not replace “alien” gods of gaps with ghosts? Ghosts did it. Or Zues? Or Odin? Or Chtullu? The framework for the religious debate depends only upon the foundation of one’s religious beliefs. The dogma of methodological naturalism as practiced under the religion of secular humanism allows for a belief in aliens from outer space provided that they, in turn, were not also created by a divine supreme being. Methodological naturalism does not allow for the supernatural but it is still very much a religious belief.
While not being very scientific, panspermia is a great example of a “god of the gaps” fallacy and a great example of the religious foolishness Darwinists preach and teach in the name of the secular humanist religion. Perhaps textbooks should come with the following warning, “Abandon all logic ye who enter into Darwinism.”
Coming up for Air
If we can take a breath for a moment, I would like to discuss oxygen. Oxygen, in the form of H2O is an atom in every single molecule of water. Water is an absolutely essential compound for all known forms of life in the universe which is why NASA spends trillions of tax dollars looking for water on every rock in space. Additionally, ionized oxygen in the atmosphere forms our planet’s ozone layer. The ozone layer blocks many harmful types of radiation from reaching the surface of our planet, such as cosmic rays. Without an ozone layer, snake oil vendors like Al Gore (speaking of hot air) would not be able to sell anyone “carbon credits” and planet Earth would closely resemble Venus by now due to some very real “global warming” performed by a cosmic bombardment of gamma and theta radiation.
Here’s a fairly insurmountable problem Darwinists face. The presence of oxygen in any amount causes organic compounds to decompose. The famous Urey-Miller experiment leveraged a gas-phase process which ultimately produced both left and right dead amino acids and poisonous toxins like tar and formaldehyde which were euphemistically labeled “organic compounds.”
Just to give you some context, EVERY SINGLE such experiment has only ever produced either compounds that are toxic or outright deadly to life — such as formaldehyde — or a bucket of dead amino acids. No laboratory experiment has ever produced living tissues from non-living raw materials.
Living things only have certain proportions of any of the elements within their bodies, and these elements chemically combine — a process called reduction — they have been reduced into special chemical compounds. When the chemical compounds found in living beings are exposed to oxygen, they decompose or, as chemists would say, they oxidize. Simply put, these chemicals leave the reduced, chemically combined state, and break down to individual chemicals again in the presence of oxygen.
Stanley Miller knew this fact.
“The synthesis of compounds of biological interest takes place only under reducing conditions [that is, with no free oxygen in the atmosphere].”
Stanley L. Miller and Leslie E. Orgel (1974), p. 33.
Miller knew that he could never form anything resembling organic compounds in the presence of oxygen which is why he replaced an atmosphere containing oxygen in the simulated environment of his experiment with methane.
This leads to an unsolvable chicken and egg problem for Darwinists. Since oxygen is required for the chemicals to catalyze, and the near complete absence of oxygen is required for reducing conditions, there is no logical way organic compounds could have formed. If you ignore one variable, the other side of the equation destroys the premise.
“With oxygen in the air, the first amino acid would never have gotten started; [but] without oxygen, it would have been wiped out by cosmic rays.”
Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (1982), p. 65.
Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Condense
As I said in part III of this series, in addition to synthesis problems, there are also condensation problems. Fats, sugars, and nucleic acids can only possibly come from proteins and only then by very careful and highly specific removal of fluid, amid other equally complicated activities conducted by laboratory technicians in ridiculously expensive experiments. Without water loss, proteins cannot form in water. Okay, hold that thought and read on.
The Precipitates Problem
The chemical compounds within living creatures were meant to be inside them, not outside. Outside, those compounds are quickly anihilated, if they do not first quickly destroy one another.
Even if they could survive the other problems, many organic products formed in the ocean would be removed and rendered inactive as precipitates. For example, fatty acids would combine with magnesium or calcium; while amino acids like arginine, or other organic compounds like chlorophyl or porphyrins, would be absorbed by clays. Many of the chemicals would react with other chemicals to form non-biologically useful products. Sugars and amino acids, for example, are chemically incompatible when brought together.
Even if the very moment amino acids form, water loss could somehow “naturally occur” (it can’t), enzyme inhibitors would then neutralize the results. The problem for Darwinists here is that a powerfully concentrated combination of chemicalized “primitive water” would be needed to produce the materials of life, but those same chemicals would first inhibit then quickly destroy any chemical compounds and enzymes thus created.
Where’s the Primordial Water?
Most of the chemicals needed by life could not arise in a watery environment, such as seawater. In fact, experiments such as Urey-Miller (this is a key point to understand) in addition to not even using actual AIR like that which we find in the earth’s actual atmosphere, used fluids other than water to attain success. They do not use seawater — or even regular water — when they prepare those brown vats full of tar, toxins, poisons, and dead amino acids they all point to as evidence for spontaneous generation.
“Beneath the surface of the water there would not be enough energy to activate further chemical reactions; water in any case, inhibits the growth of more complex molecules.”
Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe (1982), p. 65.
Now, Concentrate
We never find the sheer concentrations of chemicals in seawater that amino acid synthesis would need. All the elements are there, but not in the proper concentrations. Not even close.
Most of what is in seawater is just, well, water. Looking for chemicals suspended in seawater in close proximity to each other, or in commingled densities, is like looking for a clock in a casino. You just aren’t going to find it.
That’s Rich
An extremely rich mixture of chemicals would be required for the alleged formation of the first living molecule. Assuming their spontaneous generation theories are correct, then there ought to be places in the world where such rich mixtures are still found today, or evidence that they once existed, but they simply do not exist.
“If there ever was a primitive soup, then we would expect to find at least somewhere on this planet either massive sediments containing enormous amounts of the various nitrogenous organic compounds, amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, and the like, or alternatively in much metamorphosed sediments we should find vast amounts of nitrogenous cokes … In fact, no such materials have been found anywhere on earth. There is, in other words, pretty good negative evidence that there never was a primitive organic soup on this planet that could have lasted but a brief moment.”
J. Brooks and G. Shaw, Origins and Development of Living Systems.
Supply Problems
In any conceivable primitive environment, there simply would not be enough other chemicals available to accomplish the tasks needed for the naturalistic magic to happen.
For example, most biochemicals contain the element nitrogen. Renowned biochemist Gish discovered that there never has been enough concentration of nitrogen, in air and water, for amino acids to form naturally by themselves. Simply put, nitrogen does not occur naturally in sufficient supply in rich enough concentrations.
Similar studies have been made on the availability of phosphorus by a biochemist named Bernal. There would not have been enough phosphorus available in sufficient supply for the many needed chemical combinations. Phosphorus is needed for DNA and other high-energy compounds. But phosphorus concentrations are too low outside of living things.
Even once anointed high priest of secular humanism, the late Dr. Carl Sagan, famous Darwinist and atheist, found that adenosine triphosphate (high-energy phosphate or ATP) could not possibly form under the prebiological conditions.
The Truth
The truth is that no one living or dead has ever come up with a plausible explanation for how the universe came to be, how the galaxies and stars and planets follow their orderly paths, how life on our planet even exists — without having been created. There is no sound theory in existence that leaves out the Architect.
The further truth is that the entire creation debate has nothing to do with science since science, by its very nature, is logical. Darwinists abandon logic in nearly every single one of their interpretations of actual scientific evidence.
The truth is that this debate is a religious debate on every front.
The truth is that the scientific evidence supports the Biblical account of creation as described by the Creator Himself.
I encourage you to research it with an open mind while applying methodological critical thought and logic to the debate. Don’t allow yourself to buy into false restrictions or follow biased parameters. I have no doubt that you will arrive at the same conclusion.
God Bless you and yours.
Gregg
Resources:
Additional Posts dealing with Creation and Darwinism
“a fully formed and fully functional living organism”
Well, the idea is that at some point there was a fully functional organism, with the basic biochemical systems and reproductive mechanisms working, that was the common ancestor to all currently living organisms. But this lifeform would not have been the first form in the development of living things, according to the ideas of abiogenesis.
.
I would expect that the majority of biologists think that life originated on earth. To suggest that biologists are now claiming that aliens must have brought life to earth because biochemical ideas of the origin of life on earth have failed is, I think, to misrepresent scientific thinking. I suppose the idea that lifeforms were delivered by aliens, or drifted in on meteorites, can’t be ruled out. Neither can supernatural forces, but the idea of supernatural forces, unless they were to leave physical traces of their action, add nothing to science. Without evidence, there’s no way to pursue the idea of aliens, bacteria on meteorites, or supernatural events. However we can investigate the biochemical possibilities for living organisms developing on earth. Living things work by biochemistry and biochemical mechanisms can be studied. There is no barrier to the idea that life could have developed from chemicals.
In one way, it doesn’t matter. Whether life developed on earth from chemicals or appeared some other way, biologists think there is strong evidence that all living forms developed from some common ancestor, wherever it came from.
.
“dead” amino acids – how can an amino acid be dead?
Marty. Thanks for your comment. Amino acids, like all chemicals, are three-dimensional structures. The arrangement of the central carbon atom is tetrahedral. Urey-Miller — and all such similar experiments that have followed — produced “right-handed” and “left-handed” (L and D) amino acids. There are only ever right handed amino acids (D) in living things and the presence of both is incompatible with life. Ergo — dead amino acids.
.
I do not feel I am misrepresenting “scientific thinking” since I do not criticize scientific thinking. Please do not misrepresent my meaning in misrepresenting my words. I am a very strong advocate of scientific thinking. I think that shows through more strongly than needed at times. I admire science — love it really — and scientists. I especially love my sister who is a degreed scientist and has been for nearly 20 yeas. I am, however, being critical of Darwinists and Darwinism, which subverts scientific thinking by using religious interpretations of actual science to obscure and obfuscate true discovery. If you are attempting to say that my thinking is unscientific by some kind of “default” because I criticize Darwinism or because you disagree with me, then please make a better argument.
.
In the documentary film “Expelled” a host of Darwinian scientists, up to and including Richard Dawkins, are quoted as saying that life on earth came from alien beings. Or riding on the backs of crystals. Or some other nonsense. I really don’t think I am misrepresenting anything by pointing out the fallacy in such claims masquerading as science.
.
You say that supernatural forces add nothing to science. I could not disagree more strongly with that claim. It may be true that the supernatural adds nothing to the dogma of methodological naturalism, secular humanism, or the Darwinian world views — but those practices are not science.
.
Life from outer space. You know, do you not, that the so called “Mars meteor” or “genesis rock” was shown to contain only natural rock formations and not, as Darwinists hoped, the fossilized remains of dead micro-organisms? You also know that all life in the known universe is only here — only on planet earth — do you not?
.
As for the rest, I am familiar with the secular humanist Darwinists “ideas” about abiogenesis. The Cambrian Explosion pretty much negates the entire “single common ancestor” notion and has, essentially turned the entire tree of life nonsense quite literally on its head, but that is a post for another day.
.
You say there is no barrier to the idea that life could have developed from chemicals. You’re sort of right. There is no single barrier to the notion. There are hundreds or thousands of them. I’ve only listed a few dozen and none have been refuted outside of a broad, “Oh, it could have happened anyway. It’s possible.” No. It is impossible. It could not have happened, nor did it happen. I am not soft headed enough to buy into the notion that “anything is possible.” I firmly believe that only the possible is possible. The impossible is still just plain not possible.
.
And, without retreading too much…
.
Thanks again and may God bless you and yours,
Gregg
Miller on Exobiology. (The study of life other than life on earth; e.g.: Panspermia)
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.php
A decent critical and explanatory review of Urey-Miller:
http://www.truthinscience.org.uk/site/content/view/51/65/
When you write, you write a lot! Too much for me to think about right away.
.
On misrepresenting scientific thinking, I think you do misrepresent or misunderstand scientific thinking if you suggest that it is a common position that life was put on earth by aliens. If Dawkins was represented as saying that in the Expelled movie, then the movie must have misrepresented what he was trying to communicate. My guess is that he was talking about what I mentioned above – that it makes no difference for biological evolution whether the original life form appeared by abiogenesis from chemicals on earth or whether it was delivered here by aliens – the evidence is still that all current lifeforms evolved from a single ancestral form based on their biochemical and genetic similarities. I’m sure there are good quotes available – I’m not going to look them up at the moment though.
I think you also misrepresent the thinking of scientists in your comment when you say that ‘Darwinists hoped’ there would be lifeforms on a meteor. Well, maybe they hoped there would simply because it would be interesting. But not because there’s some desperate need for a non-earth explanation of life.
I don’t see what in anything I have written would have given you the idea that I might not know that no life had been discovered anywhere but earth.
.
For the racemic amino acids – now cells work only with L-amino acids (some bacteria use some D-amino acids too though, IIRC.) But I don’t see that that means the system couldn’t have developed initially in the presence of both.
Again — no, Marty.
.
As it happens, so-called Exobiology (various theories of panspermia) IS a common Darwinist explanatory device for how life began on this planet. Subscribers to this so-called “theory” range from Richard Dawkins to Stanley Miller. This is not a false accusation or a misunderstanding on my part. It is a fact. Research it for yourself. I already posted a link to a Miller interview. Click it.
.
I am not misrepresenting scientific thinking. I think scientifically and logically myself. How can I misrepresent my very own thoughts? I certainly don’t misunderstand scientific thought. Unless I were insane, which I am not, I cannot misunderstand my own thoughts. Scientific thought is very different than the methodological naturalism and secular humanist dogma spouted by Darwinists. That has nothing to do with the actual disciplines of science. It is much more about an agenda.
.
Darwinism is not scientific thinking. Darwinism is not logical thinking. Darwinism is what I am criticizing and if you feel that I am misrepresenting the views of some Darwinists, we shall have to agree to disagree. If you think I am mistaken about the documentary film, I would advise you to actually view it for yourself. Since you haven’t done so and I have, you are casting an uninformed accusation based on, in this case, a false assumption.
.
The evidence that there was a single common ancestor is weak. At every point of the argument from homologies, the argument breaks down based on scale, composition, function, or embryonic formation.
.
Of the twenty essential base amino acids, all of them are L-amino acids. The presence of D-amino acids in protein synthesis cancels out the L-aminos. Protiens cannot and do not form when both are present.
.
God Bless,
Gregg
If life appeared on earth through a chemical process, there may never be any information on how it happened. If I understand correctly the approach is more an attempt to see if it is feasible. Since there is a huge jump between chemicals and a reproducing functioning cell (or proto-cell), what I think people are doing could be called brainstorming and problem solving. People have come up with, or modeled various possibilities and then they try to see if they are fruitful or not. Because there are many steps that would have to have happened, people look at different bits separately, with the idea that figuring out a possible approach for one piece of the puzzle might make other pieces clearer.
.
The question of D and L amino acids is one piece of the puzzle. If living cells developed from nonliving chemicals and if the original source of amino acids was racemic, why do organisms now use L-amino acids exclusively for protein syntheses by ribosomes? One possibility is that the amino acids did not stay in a 50:50 mix but some physical factor might have caused the percent of L-amino acids to increase. There are a few ideas on how that might have happened, but I don’t think anyone would claim to know that those things actually did happen. But there are some possibilitites for further investigation. I don’t understand why it matters what the original composition was anyway (but maybe someone could enlighten me). The reason D-amino acids cannot be incorporated into proteins now has to do with the structure of the ribosome and also to the tRNAs. If life began on earth through chemicals, there were originally no ribosomes, no tRNA, no code – those things had to develop. So originally there was no problem with having both D and L amino acids around. I wonder if the preference for L could have been a flkuke – that the molecules which preceded the ribosomes happened to have a structure which fit the L form better than the D. But I don’t know enough about this topic – maybe there’s a reason why there needed to be mostly L amino acids around first.
.
But there was nothing inherently toxic about D amino acids. The problem now is that all living things currently have a system which is specific to L-amino acids. If a D-amino acid were put in place of the related L amino acid, the protein structure would be shaped wrong. But if there had originally been a code for both D and L, and if ribosomes had allowed them both to be combined into protein, I think both could have been used. (Or we could have had all D-amino acids.) So the idea that there were originally both D and L amino acids does not mean they were ‘dead’ or nonfunctional.
As it is, bacteria combine some D and L amino acids into peptide antibiotics but they do this with specific enzymes rather than with ribosomes. So it is possible to combine D and L amino acids, just not in the ribosomes using the DNA code for protein. Also we have some D amino acids in our brains – D-serine and D-aspartate – which have some specific functions (they are made in the brain by enzymes which racemize the L forms). (We also get a small amount of D-amino acids in our foods, partly as a result of heat processing but also from fermented foods, since bacteria use some D-amino acids in their cell walls. We do have enzymes which can degrade D-amino acids, and also enzymes which can remove them from tRNAs if they bind to them inappropriately. (I learned this by reading about it.) If there were too high a concentration of the D-amino acids I think it could cause problems – partly by binding to the tRNA pools?)
We are probably having a private conversation right now. Let me try to put this in layman’s terms for other readers. Let’s imagine we have a protein called bracket. A left-handed bracket protein would have an atomic structure that looks like this: { while a right handed bracket protein would have an atomic structure that looks like this: } While they are composed of exactly the same atoms and molecules, they are three-dimensional shapes and, as such, fit together with other three-D shapes only in very specific ways. If the receptor that they fit into looks like this: { then they would fit together like so: {{ and a right handed bracket protein would simply not fit: {}
The only amino acids used to build proteins in living organisms are the left-handed variety. As far as living organisms are concerned, right handed amino acids are not usable. If you start with nothing but approximately equal amounts of left and right aminos, you simply never arrive at a useful protein. I am not saying right handed aminos do not exist, I am just saying that in terms of manufacturing useful proteins, they may as well not exist.
Not that it matters. It is just yet one more insurmountable problem that Darwinists face in attempting to show that spontaneous generation can take place. Everything is if this and what if that and let’s suppose. “Let’s suppose that this utterly impossible premise might possibly be true. If that is the case, then it it possible that…” and ultimately concludes that life came from non-life.
The assumptions are always blatantly false at the starting gate, yet the fallacious conclusions are what is taught as fact to our children in text-books. Why is that, do you suppose?
God Bless,
Gregg
Okay, I’m just going to try for a brief comment about the aliens idea.
I watched some segments of Expelled on youtube and saw the Dawkins segment where he talks about intelligent aliens. He was not responding to a question about how he thought life had appeared on earth – he was responding to a question about design. It seems clear to me that he was making a hypothetical point about intelligent aliens in the context of the Intelligent Design idea. (I think he was making two points – first, that a hypothetical intelligent source of life COULD have left a sign,a watermark in the DNA, but so far nothing like that has been spotted, and second, the exact point you made above, that an intelligent alien would itself have to have come from somewhere, so the ID argument defaults to a religious argument, even though they say it is not.)
.
Since the ‘Expelled’ movie was clearly hostile to evolutionary biologists (they were deceived about the intent of the movie when they agreed to the interviews) you could suspect that the filmmakers did not make an attempt to fairly represent Dawkins’ views in the movie but chose bits from the interview that could be used to mock him. A clear example of this is in the Michael Ruse segment where he refers to crystals (which BTW is not an extraterrestrial idea but about clay minerals that might have adsorbed molecules to their surface in a repetitive way) and the film cuts to a movie clip of a bizarre fortune teller with a crystal ball and a turban. This tactic of ‘Expelled’ would be an excellent example of ‘Appeal to Ridicule’.
.
A place to look for what Dawkins actually thinks about the origin of life on earth is in his books. I took a quick look at five of his books (some on Amazon using ‘look inside’) and in each case he talked about abiogenesis occurring on earth. He did not talk about extraterrestrial sources or aliens. I don’t think he ruled out the possibility, but he didn’t discuss it. He did talk about the possibility of life in other parts of the universe, and basically he said we don’t know, and it’s possible we might be the only planet with life. Given that, it’s clear he does not rely on extraterrestrial sources to account for life on earth.
.
I have four biology textbooks that I bought at library used book sales. They all talked about abiogenesis happening on earth, not from aliens. One of them mentioned panspermia, but I think they used the word incorrectly, or in strange way: they called the arrival of organic chemicals on meteors ‘panspermia’. I also have a textbook on evolution from a library book sale. It does mention panspermia but as an alternate hypothesis, and says that ‘most contemporary specialists assume that life originated on earth’. This is in response to your post above and also in the fallacies of relevance XII post,
‘that Darwinists have resorted to the Alien Fallacy’
“In the above examples, one must have a personal belief in aliens and a preconceived notion that aliens have extra-normal power to influence the natural world. Darwinists use this exact fallacy to explain how life began on earth. The authoritatively scientific sounding word they have invented for this fallacious “aliens did it theory” is panspermia.’
which imply to me that these posts are suggesting that the idea of panspermia is now the main explanation of evolutionary biologists, including Dawkins, for the appearance of life on earth. Dawkins’ own writings and the textbook examples show that that is not the case.
I appreciate your position.
In your comment, you state that the evolutionary biologists interviewed were “deceived about the intent” of the film when they agreed to be interviewed. Whether that is the case or not does not erase or in anyway invalidate the answers provided during those interviews. The conditions under which they agreed to be interviewed are not relevant to what they actually said during the interviews anymore than the answers spoken from a witness stand are affected by whether the questions come from the defense or the prosecution.
When Michael Ruse forcefully — almost shouted, really — about how life could have begun “on the backs of crystals” twice no less, it was a moment that I believe is worthy of ridicule. Ruse did not explain or expand on his silly remark — and it is is quite silly. For one thing, crystals do not have “backs” or coat tails or any other thing that can be ridden by unwitting organic molecules. You know it and I know it to be true. This is simple anthropomorphizing. For another, repetitive patterns such as those found naturally in crystals and bubbles never, ever, never, ever, never, ever contain information. They only ever contain simple and repetitive organization. That is light years from complex and specific information. The only thing that could have possibly “ridden on the backs of crystals” was maybe some more crystals. The depiction of Ruse as a gypsy fortune teller is fairly accurate in that light. Additionally, his refusal to explain his remark beyond yelling, his shouted refrain of , “I said it could have begun on the backs of crystals!” borders on a false appeal to force.
I do not believe that all Darwinists feel that life came from aliens. However, some very obviously do. I sent you a few links of such Darwinists as Stanley Miller doing an interview on the theory, and his specific interests and beliefs in exobiology. I do not mean to imply that all Darwinists feel that the “aliens did it theory” is the primary cause of life beginning on earth. I merely pointed out that nearly all of them will entertain the notion, even as ultimately silly as that notion is, while flatly refusing to entertain a notion that involves the Creator. You have named some of those very Darwinists in your comment.
The Intelligent Design movement itself makes no claims whatsoever about who or what designed anything. It merely scientifically qualifies and quantifies the strong evidence of design in living systems. So on one hand, Darwinists readily concede that life on earth could have been designed by an alien race, while on the other hand they completely refuse that design even exists and ardently mock anyone who points to the very real and very strong evidence of design in the world in which we live if they dare to suggest the designer was our Creator God. And that kind of fallacious thought is called simple hypocrisy.
There have been examples of supposed irreducible complexity proposed (for example by Behe), but they have not turned out to be convincing. The ID movement has not succeeded in producing any positive evidence for design.
I agree that Ruse was inarticulate in his answer. IIRC he said the clay crystal idea was one possibility that had been proposed (not the only one). On his wikipedia bio he is listed as a philosopher of biology (?) rather than a biologist so he may have read about the clay without remembering the details. I don’t agree that ridicule is necessarily justified, but even if they chose to ridicule Ruse personally for his awkward answer, they didn’t have to ridicule the clay idea in the limited form that Ruse presented it – the movie could have cut away to an explanation of the idea itself and responded to that. I don’t know if the idea is still being considered, and I didn’t pay much attention to it when I saw it in the books, but I don’t think the clay crystals were supposed to be a source of information, just a way to bring organic molecules together.
I disagree that they are unconvincing, although I am sure that Darwinists are predisposed to not being convinced.
I believe that when you qualify and quantify evidence for design down to greater than 1 in 10^150 that qualifies as strong evidence.
I would encourage you to look at some of the works of William Dembski, PhD. and we can revisit this conversation.
Information — specific and complex information — is required for life. This cannot form “riding on the backs of crystals.”
” I merely pointed out that nearly all of them will entertain the notion, even as ultimately silly as that notion is,…”
I don’t see why it is silly to entertain this idea as a remote possibility.
There’s life on this planet. There are a lot of stars and some of them also have planets. Maybe there are other planets with life. We have no evidence at all for any extra-terrestrial life, but also we have no evidence to rule out the possibity. It is an unknown. Our planet deliberately shot off some items into space. I think we tried to make them sterile, but perhaps we failed. An explosion of earth might send fragments containing spores of bacteria into space. Could any survive? Maybe it’s unlikely, but didn’t they find some living organism on a space shuttle?
If we do find a meteor with living bacteria or spores, then the idea that life on earth arrived from an extra-terrestrial source would gain support. If we found some space ship buried in the earth indicating that actual science fiction aliens arrived here billions of years ago, then that would add support to the idea. If we found any kind of life in space, that would add support to the idea. But all these seem unlikely to happen. Without that kind of evidence, it’s just a remote possibility. But I don’t understand how you can totally dismiss it as silly or say it’s impossible.
“I don’t see why it is silly to entertain this idea (panspermia, aka, aliens did it) as a remote possibility.”
You have probably heard it said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, that of leaving the gate. In my opinion, there are too many problems leaving the gate to make this lark a worthwhile journey.
The entire purpose of entertaining the notion as a remote possiblity is the implicit confession that abiogenesis — biopoesis — spontaneous generation — is impossible. Since it is impossible, the problem is solved by a Deux Ex Machina event in the form of “aliens did it” and Ta-Da! Fine. Let’s talk about that, and why I feel it is silly to even entertain it as a remote possibility outside of the rather obvious desperation to consider ABSOLUTELY ANY possibility other than the divine.
Without getting into way, way, way too much detail, the Anthropic Principle dictates VERY limited and specific conditions that are required for life. So, even if the universe is infinite in size (I do not personally believe this) there remain only very few and very special so-called “Goldilocks zones” in which life could possibly exist.
You have probably heard of the Drake Equation, often terribly misquoted in popular science fiction as something like, “If only 1 in a billion stars have planets, and only 1 in a billion of those planets could support life, and only 1 in a billion of those DO support life, and only 1 in a billion of those support intelligent life, there would still be umpteen gajillion bazillion planets with intelligent life on them,” and so forth. The actual equation is a bit more structured, but that’s the jist.
The problem with that, and similar blind leaps of faith, is that the premise is incorrect and the conclusion is not scientifically sound. Using the Milky Way Galaxy as an example, it is a galaxy of billions of stars that spans more than 80 light years from the tip of the nearest spiral arm to the outer edge of the most distant. Yet there is a very, very fine and limited area of the galaxy where life COULD possibly exist (the something band — the name escapes me at the moment), and there are only very, very fine and limited areas within that band where the right kind and size of sun (Yellow Giant, rare compared to red/blue/white etc. in star populations) could exist and the right kind of gravity well like Jupiter out there catching debris, and planets with liquid water and planets with mainly circular orbits (opposed to very elliptical or erratic) and so on and so on. Even in our own galaxy that spans 80 light years and houses billions of stars, the Anthropic Principle dictates that — mathematically speaking — there is approximately ONE place where life can even possibly exist in all that space and among all those stars.
And, what do you know, it does. (See “The Priveleged Planet” or, better, read the book for a complete explanation of Anthropic Principle)
The odds against life existing anywhere else in the universe are, pardon the pun, equally astronomical.
Then take into account that the universe itself is only — according to Darwinists — a mere 15 billion years old. My timeline is significantly less, but I will use their timeline. That means a cosmic genesis event took place and several billion years had to transpire before a habitable planet COULD form. Then several billion years for an intelligent race to “evolve” as Darwinists claim happened on our own planet. Then several mellenia for them to journey to our little insignificant rock tucked away on a spur of the Orion-Cygnus arm, and seed life and flee, never to return for some unknown reason.
Or take into account the odds against living material from any other Goldilocks zone where life magically happned somehow transforming into a cosmic seed and surviving a “natural” journey that takes it across billions or trillions of light years, to our little galaxy, then to our little solar system, then past Jupiter and Saturn without getting snagged, and gently lands it on primitive earth where that life miraculously takes root. The odds against such a journey are so ridiculously impossible it would probably be a waste of time to attempt the calculation.
And — Where did that life come from? Logically speaking, if abiogenesis is impossible (it is) then that life had to have an origin somewhere. Was IT seeded by the debris of another catastrophe in some other Goldilocks zone? Did it evolve over millions and billions of years until it could take root on earth?
How is it that alien DNA would even be compatible with life here on earth? What I mean by that is, for example, the left handed v right handed amino problem for example. How is alien life totally compatible and consistent with life on this planet? What are the odds? What are the probabilities?
In my opinion, the odds and probabilities against panspermia are far, far too great to ponder it as even a remote possibility. It is well beyond mathematically impossible which gives me the wiggle room I need to state that it is so impossible it is just plain silly.
However, I appreciate that Darwinists may disagree. They often accept things that are well beyond mathematically impossible as truth and fact, so who am I to tell them no? I am only saying that when you are afflicted with logic and reason coupled with good judgment, such larks are merely larks, and rather silly in the face of facts and logic.
I hope this answer satisfies.
God Bless you. Gregg.
The idea is that life on earth evolved from a common ancestor, and the predecessors of that common ancestor originally developed from nonliving chemicals, probably on earth, but with the very remote possibility that it initially happened on some other planet and somehow arrived on earth. The common ancestor of current life on earth used L-amino acids to make protein because the genetic code uses L-amino acids. But there is nothing that says life on earth requires L-amino acids. There is nothing AFAIK that says the original protein molecules during the development of living cells could not have been made from a racemic mixture, or from a limited set of amino acids not including all the current amino acids, nor that they couldn’t have included some nonstandard amino acids.
(That was unclear: I should have said we know the common ancestor of life on earth used L-amino acids because the genetic code and ribosome etc in all current living organisms use L-amino acids.)
(As I said earlier, D-amino acids are used in some molecules and for some purposes.)
There is also no evidence that life on earth sprung from a single common ancestor. In fact, the Cambrian Explosion pretty much directly refutes that notion offering contradicting evidence.
No known life REQUIRES D-aminos. There is nothing that says life on earth does NOT require L-amino acids, since all life in the known universe DOES require L-aminos.
There is nothing that says living cells could ever possibly manufacture themselves from non-living materials so the issue of what kinds of aminos they used is moot.
There is no evidence that life came to earth based on an extraterrestiral origin.
A total lack of evidence for or against something is neither evidence for nor evidence against that thing.
We do not know that there is a common ancestor of life on earth at all. That is not factual.